


A Sea-Spell

by gleamingandwholeanddeadly (something_safe)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anaphylaxis, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal nearly loses his mind worrying, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder husbands try to make a life together, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-TWOTL, Sickness/Illness, Will Loves Hannibal, all healed up, allergic reactions, being cute together, everyone is okay, fic prompt, insect stings, no one dies, they're still working stuff out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 18:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14170482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_safe/pseuds/gleamingandwholeanddeadly
Summary: Will and Hannibal are living it up on a secluded Maldivian island, convalescing and re-establishing their relationships and routines. A wasp sting throws their fragile equilibrium into uncertain turmoil.





	A Sea-Spell

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a prompt left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask). I gave this one its own doc bc it's looong.
> 
> For the prompt:
> 
> "Post S3, when they are somewhat cozily settled, Will falls suddenly and (nearly?) fatally ill. It can be something absolutely mundane like poisoned mushrooms or untreated pneumonia. The point is: how would Hannibal deal? Would he plan some dramatic funeral? Would he tie a specialist down and force him to treat Will? :) Happy or not-so-happy ending, your choice! You rock!"
> 
> Hope you like it- it's loosely based on the painting ['A Sea-Spell' by Rossetti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sea%E2%80%93Spell) and the corresponding poem.

 

Hannibal peers out of the kitchen window to where Will sits perched in his motorboat on the gently swelling water. A solitary figure in a stretch of endless ocean, for a moment Hannibal indulges himself in imagining he’s content. From his considering stance, his concentration on the knot he’s working in his lap, it’s easy to project.

Their weeks under the sun have been kind to Will, lightening his hair and warming his pallor, the concerning skinniness of life on the lam eventually sloughing away like the rest of it had into something healthier and altogether more appealing. He’s at home on the water, and in it too, often stepping off the little boat into the bottomless blue, surfacing with his hair slicked into dark hooks around his cheeks. The exercise is good for his shoulder- which is worsening with time, only partially alleviated by the warmth and rest- and he makes a point to take care of himself.

Hannibal watches him set aside a lure now and pick up an apple from the bag by his feet. He produces a pocketknife, and when the sun catches it he appears to be peeling the fruit with light itself, dropping the curled skin into the water and watching whatever marine life comes to investigate it. Hannibal can’t see it clearly, but he can imagine his teeth in the pale flesh; the run of juice down his chin. He contents himself with closing his eyes and seeing it that way, and when he opens them again, Will pitches the core into the water and uses salt water to rinse his hands and mouth.

Eventually, he stands to cast his lure into the endless blue, the gold of his back flexing with the movement, the simple opulence of it pleasing to Hannibal in a way he can scarcely quantify.

It’s been more than bliss. Hannibal can’t remember the last time he’d felt happy to idle away hours with nothing more than the sight of Will and maybe a sketch or two. The Maldivian island they’re living on is surrounded by nothing but still, Tiffany blue water, sporadically interrupted by boat streams on the horizon, the occasional plane cutting smoke across the cloudless sky. They get a food shipment once a week and supplement the rest with whatever Will catches on fine days, of which there are many.

The sun hovers directly above them now, their only surviving witness so far; a silent adjudicator. Hannibal steps out of the cabin and calls Will for lunch, watching him turn and raise his hand in acknowledgement. He secures his fishing rod and, instead of bringing the boat in, leaves it anchored and dives neatly into the water, his silhouette cutting sleek through the clear depths like a hunting cormorant.

Hannibal is still getting used to these little displays, all for him, he knows. Will’s antipathy toward him after the fall had been purely affectation, a lingering guardedness, and it had taken Hannibal some considerable efforts to relieve him of it.

Like all their other revelations, it had of course only come about in the wake of bloodshed. Will had been outright unbearable at times while they travelled, argumentative and barbed, the way Hannibal had known him when he’d paced back and forth in his cell in BSHCI, throwing daggers and knowing exactly where on Hannibal they landed.

As he washes his hands for dinner, Hannibal remembers the day that finally brought them from those moments to this one.

 

Things had finally come to head when they’d arrived here and been alone with nothing once again but the empty sky and the deep blue sea. Will spent several days doing what Hannibal could only describe as ‘skulking’, lingering in doorways and disappearing for long walks. Their contact had become infrequent now their wounds were healing, and often Hannibal found himself silent for the entire day, alone with his thoughts as Will walked and decompressed and cogitated in turn.

The arrival of a storm witnessed the breaking of their proverbial one. Clouds settled in over the island, bringing great torrents of rain that flattened the sand and cracked off the corrugated iron of the pergola outside the villa. Will came to stand in the kitchen doorway while Hannibal prepared dinner, his silence promising upheaval.

“You knew I would try to kill us,” he said.

Hannibal was scarcely surprised anymore by Will’s deductions, nor his accusations.

“I believed it was a possibility. I had considered it quite likely we would die, but there was a chance with the tide in that we would not hit the rocks.”

“Why didn’t you try to stop me?”

“Because I wished for you to have what you wanted, Will. You wanted to leave our fate to chance, to let the universe decide. You had long since decided that you could not live as you were with your appetite for cruelty, and you wanted to do what others might have construed the right thing. In a way, you succeeded: you killed that part of you forever.”

“It wasn’t because of that. It was the right thing to do: to try.”

“You don’t believe that anymore than I do,” Hannibal discounted it easily, not above provocation, “you have always been so concerned with the thoughts of others, Will. I wish just occasionally you would allow yourself to act purely on your own desires, uncompelled by the bigger picture and without compunction for the ripples within it.”

“Microscopic vision is wilful ignorance,” Will argued, “you can’t just ignore external variables in order to extrapolate the reality you desire.”

“Yes, but a lens on the great expanse of truth can be just as blinding. How are you to ever know yourself, if you are always preoccupied with how others see you, and what outcomes their thoughts might trigger in you?” He used the knife he had been cutting with to lift raw fish onto plates in neatly diced mounds, before drowning it with lime juice and chilli. “In the depths of the ocean, the shark knows nothing of the fear it inspires. It knows nothing of F and F sharp, and terror. Only that it is hungry, and that to survive, it must kill.”

“We don’t have to kill to survive, Hannibal.”

“I would argue that we do. Whether that need is born of necessity or merely wickedness, however, is a philosophical debate I am not interested in. Psychology, genetics, or good old-fashioned damnation- the answer is the same.”

Will’s voice came cracked again when he finally spoke.

“You left your teeth in me,” he whispered, “you knew I wouldn’t ever be able to get you out of my head, not after all the effort you went to make yourself at home in there.”

Despite the way he had enjoyed it before, Hannibal was now finding this particular narrative tedious.

“I would argue that I simply inspired you to bite back occasionally,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “It was you that missed the taste of flesh.”

In the next instant, Will grabbed a filleting knife from the rack, and lunged. Despite being slowed by his injuries, Hannibal evaded, and between the crashing of plates and scramble of fists they lost balance and tumbled through the open patio doors and onto the rain-slick decking with a flat thump, twisting to avoid one another’s hands and mouths and grunting in pain. Hannibal broke free first, hauling himself up on the handrail and starting down the steps to the beach, but Will was close behind, falling on him with enough force to send them both tumbling down onto the beach. Will cried out at the jar on his shoulder, and the impact with the ground rendered Hannibal winded. He slapped Will’s hands away as Will aimed with the knife, bringing his own fist up with enough force that Will’s head snapped back, teeth clicking. They clashed again, dodging and delivering blows, scrambling and gouging at one another in the sodden sand.

Above the tangle of their bodies, lightning cracked on the clouds. Hannibal found himself flung onto his back as the rain needled his eyes, Will rising over him, victorious as ever. The knife he pressed into his throat shaved stubble off the underside of Hannibal’s chin as his hands shook.

“Is this what you wanted?” He asked Hannibal, teeth picked out in red. “Is this your design?”

He looked transcendently beautiful. The lightning halo’d him, rain dripping from the ends of his hair, his pale eyes flashing in the light. Even though he pressed harder with the knife, Hannibal fancied he had no desire to kill him. His eyes had lost their steel, body sagging down against his own as the adrenaline started to subside. The rain ran down his cheeks, collecting on his lashes, beading his scars.

Breaths unsteady, Hannibal reached to grip his wrist, and pushed the knife away with little resistance. When it was safely out of reach, he curled a hand into Will’s wet curls, and answered him with a kiss.

 

Now, aware of the extents of Hannibal’s affections, Will is allowing himself to take advantage of it little by little, day by day.

Willingly rapt, Hannibal watches him emerge from the water like a creature of myth, creamy waves clinging at his ankles as he walks up the powdered sugar bank. He gleams with it, body and face running, dappling the sand with tracks. He comes up the steps, and Hannibal hands him a towel at the door.

“Hot, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Will rubs his face on the towel with a murmur of thanks, unfastening his swim shorts as he pads through to the bedroom. Unconcerned with the concept of propriety, Hannibal watches openly, tongue touching the bow of his upper lip.

“Drink?” He asks.

“Please.” Will glances at him over his shoulder as he strips off his shorts, and Hannibal knows from the cant of his head and the angle of his brows that he’s under no illusions about what this little show is doing to him.

“I thought we could have lunch on the jetty again.” He moves to pour him a drink from the fridge, garnishing it with ice and mint and holding it out when Will returns from the bedroom, moderately more covered in board shorts, towelling his hair. The scar on his belly stands out in a pale bow, raised from his tanned skin.

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

Hannibal watches his throat work as he takes a long swallow, draining it down. He doesn’t reach for him, not even when Will comes into range, instead steeling himself until he feels a brush of fingers against his forearm.

“Need me to help with anything?” Will opens the fridge to refill his glass, taking another sip or two before passing it to Hannibal, who pauses before raising the glass to his lips, letting Will watch him in turn as he drinks.

“No, it’s all ready,” he says finally, setting it empty on the side.

Glancing out the window to where their little fold away table has been set up for an elegant repast, Will smiles, the scarred knot in his cheek dimpling.  “Let me carry something, at least.”

“You can bring the wine. And the cooler.”

Leaving him to do so, Hannibal takes their food out, laying each plate down carefully, nudging the cutlery back into order with his pinky where an errant wind has turned it on the napkin. He feels Will’s warmth against his back for a second as he leans to set down the cooler, a palm brushing against the linen of his shirt. Hannibal is enchanted by the touches he’s gifted: Will is all too often withholding, though without malice. Hannibal learned early on that for Will, skin contact was a gift given only to those who had earned it- and that Will found himself particularly undeserving.

“Looks good,” he tells Hannibal as he sits down, spreading his napkin over his lap in the same practised motion Hannibal does. He pours the wine, and they start to eat in silence. Hannibal looks at Will and smiles, and feels a pulse of warm pleasure when Will smiles back.

 

By evening, Hannibal is waiting for Will on the patio swing. It’s a beautiful night, the sky still aflame and the air scented with jasmine from the climbers around the pergola. Hannibal stands to light a couple of lanterns before he sits back down, book cradled in his lap as he listens to sea birds calling; the distant cough of the boat motor.

Will is a black shadow at the end of the jetty, gliding across a pool of liquid fire as the sun sinks down beyond the waves. The engine cuts, and he climbs out of the boat, leaving his kit in situ and bringing instead two heavy snapper fish, already gutted.

“I’ll put these in the freezer,” he tells Hannibal as he draws level, “I know you wanted to make paella tonight.”

“Thank you.” He watches him go with another small smile, listening to the opening of drawers and compartments, and finally running water. After his shower, Will comes back onto the patio in those shorts again. He greets Hannibal with a glass of wine and, to his surprise, a kiss.

“May I sit with you?” He asks. Recovering only enough to nod, Hannibal draws to the side of the bench, watching Will lower himself down carefully. Lit by the bloody sun and the glow of the porch light, he’s a Leighton painting, reclining in tones of fire.

After taking a sip of his wine, Will leans to set the glass down and retrieves a battered acoustic guitar from behind the bench, pulling it into his lap and plucking the strings experimentally, twisting the pegs to tune up. He had discovered the guitar in one of the guest rooms when they’d first arrived, but Hannibal has only heard a few gentle strums from a distance: Will has never played in front of him before.

“How long have you been playing?” He enquires, wanting to encourage him.

“Since I was about eighteen.” Will strums a few chords and, satisfied, starts to play, halting at first, just a gentle melody. Hannibal thinks it might be Leonard Cohen. “I didn’t for years after I joined the force. Picked it up every now and again but there never seemed much point.”

“Recreational beauty doesn’t have to have a point.”

“Ours usually does.”

Mollified, Hannibal subsides to simply watch him play, flanked by flowers and candlelight. He wants so badly to draw him that it aches. He settles for committing every motion of his fingers to memory; every sound, no matter how clunky. It reminds him fiercely of a painting he’s seen before.

After a while, Will flexes his fingers, shaking out cramp.

“This shoulder… my hands just don’t do as they’re told after a while.”

“You should take a break, as much as I like hearing you play,” Hannibal agrees.

Setting the guitar aside, Will leans back, drawing one foot up and using the other to move the swing gently, watching moths and flies gather around the lantern overhead. Hannibal smiles despite himself: displays of levity are rare in Will and reassuring to see after so long an absence. He looks flushed and tired and good. Seeing it gives Hannibal a feeling akin to hunger but without the bloodlust that usually accompanies it.

“You look as if you’ve caught the sun,” he admonishes gently, “you should be using more sunscreen.”

“It gets washed off every time I go on the water. I’ll put some Aftersun on later. I’m not much of a burner.”

“Sunburn isn’t the only problem, you can get heatstroke very easily out here.”

“Yeah all right, Doctor.” He sips his drink, nudging Hannibal gently with his toes. Hannibal takes the opportunity to touch his ankle, squeezing gently. Will smiles wider but doesn’t comment. An insect buzzes idly nearby. Hannibal returns to his book, thumb gently stroking.

“Did you ever think it would be like this?” Will asks, when the hum of the evening has overtaken their comfortable silence. “That we would be able to get out of the hole we dug ourselves into?”

“We have every reason to continue with our lives. Our differences are behind us now. I always considered us compatible, even before.”

“Even before I knew you were a serial killer?” Will asks, teeth bared around the Es. Hannibal cannot look away from his mouth, nor the way he turns his face half into shadow when he notices his gaze.

“Yes.”

“I suppose you’re right, if you consider having a mutual appreciation for strangeness to be compatibility.”

“I do,” Hannibal declares. He watches a moth track down the wall behind them.

After some thought, Will smiles into his glass. “I suppose we have similar senses of humour.”

“Morbid, you mean?”

“I was going to say bad-” he cuts off, slapping a hand over his neck, leaning forward to set down his glass. His face goes tight, a hitched breath escaping him. Perplexed for a moment, Hannibal just grips his ankle until he sees Will lift his hand away, the swatted wasp falling onto the floor.

“It stung you-?”

Will nods, cringing. He screws his face up a minute, rubbing over the mark. “Jesus, that hurt. I’m okay. Fuck.”

Hannibal doesn’t reproach him, but he does frown, releasing Will’s foot and moving to examine the side of his throat.

“No sting left in it,” he says.

Will gives him a shaky smile, cheeks a bit pink- with embarrassment, perhaps. He takes in a breath that’s a little too like a whistle for Hannibal’s liking, shifting his chin like he’s trying to clear his throat.

“Will…” he starts. Will’s own face goes concerned.

“M’fine, it’s-” he makes an uncomfortable choking noise, and Hannibal reaches for him now.

“Will. Open your mouth.”

Will does. His tongue is visibly swelling, the glands in his jaw becoming prominent. Hannibal immediately jumps up and hares into the house, knocking over their wine as he goes, skidding on the marble floor where his heel is wet. He finds the Epipen in his doctor’s kit in more time than he’d like, and when he gets back to Will, he’s going an alarming shade of purple, strangely pale around the eyes.

“Will, you’re having an allergic reaction. Don’t try to breathe yet, hold on.” Hannibal shoves his shorts up to expose the meat of his thigh without ceremony and delivers the Epipen shot, holding it there, working it into the muscle as gently and patiently as he can. Will grips his arms, eyes going bloodshot.

“It’s okay, it will take a minute, look at me, listen to my voice and stay with me,” Hannibal murmurs. He gets a hand on his shoulder in return and holds on, still releasing the Epipen with his thumb. The seconds feel like hours. Wil clenches his eyes shut, the veins in his forehead and throat standing out. The mark on his neck is red and flush, the flesh around it swollen. Finally, his struggling yields a thin, choking breath, and Hannibal sighs. It’s not over, but it’s the first hurdle cleared.

“Good, good. Small breaths, don’t panic, it’s all right.”

He’s taking great, wheezing breaths now, eyes running and his chest racked with cough reflexes. Hannibal waits for him to calm down, rubbing his hands over his shoulders, heart touched at the way Will leans into it.

“Listen, Will, we must get more antihistamines into you, or your allergies may reoccur. Can you walk?”

“Mmm, think so,” Will breathes. He lets Hannibal haul an arm over his shoulder, but when he stands, his knees buckle.

Stupid, Hannibal thinks to himself, to pull him up. He can’t leave him out here though.

“All right- it’s okay.” Hannibal loops an arm under his legs and – not without difficulty- scoops him into his arms.  Will’s noise of irritation only serves to reassure him as he walks slowly back into the house, to the bedroom.

When Will is on the bed, Hannibal goes back to his medicine bag, rummaging out supplies and periodically flicking his gaze to Will. He’s expecting the moment when his head lags, and he catches it before he hits the headboard, easing him back, fingers tracking his pulse. It’s low, thready. Hypotension, from the sudden move into standing. Apeshit, Will would say. Hannibal pulls some pillows up under his feet and lies him flat, the panic that had receded on the patio starting to trickle back into his chest.

“Will,” he says it clearly, giving his shoulders a gentle shake. No response. “Will.” Again, nothing. He’s gone pale.

Without delay, Hannibal strips his clothes off, pulls the sheets up over him and sets up an IV of fluids. With his body in shock, it’s fairly easy to find a vein. Satisfied that it’s set up safely, he uses a second Epipen in Will’s other thigh, listening as his breaths come easier. The sting around his throat is starting to redden now, an ugly lump a couple of inches beneath his ear. Hannibal looks at it as he thinks, using a syringe to inject chlorphenamine maleate into the IV tube before he takes stock of Will’s pulse- still very slow- and breathing – reedy. Hannibal doesn’t have oxygen, nor an intubator. He doesn’t have anything except the essentials of an emergency kit, and his own useless goddamn hands.

He looks at Will’s drawn face, and takes a shaking breath. All the ferocity in him couldn’t prepare him for how helpless he feels in this exact moment. He could radio for assistance, he could get Will to a hospital- and then what? Wait for Jack to roll up; wait for prison and never seeing Will again. Wait for slow death by heart break and catatonic madness.

No. Will is stabilising. He’ll wait, and if he stops breathing, he’ll resuscitate. If he dies… He won’t die.

Thoughts solidifying, Hannibal moves around to the other side of the bed, turning Will carefully onto his side to make sure his airway is as unobstructed as possible while the last of the swelling goes down. With his hand on the inside of his wrist, he slips onto the bed beside him and counts his pulse, slow at first and then steadily climbing.

He gives Will more antihistamine; chases with hydrocortisone and spends a few long hours watching him, hand moving slowly up and down his side, pausing every now and then to feel the rise and fall of his lungs under his palm. The night is long and tense, and Hannibal finds himself in a pattern of checks, treatments, and then jerking awake at the faintest hint of movement from Will. For the most part, he’s still. Hannibal fears the aching silence his absence leaves behind.

 

Around dawn, Will finally stirs. Hannibal looks at him from his side of the bed, heart lurching as Will’s eyes slowly open, pale as the foaming waves outside. He looks at Hannibal, and then his own cannulated arm.

“Shit,” he croaks.

“Did you know you were allergic to wasp venom, Will?”

He expects his best _Jesus, Hannibal, you think I’d let you sail us to buttfuck nowhere if I knew I was allergic to wasps?_ but instead gets only a slow shake of his head.

“How do you feel?”

“Like there are thorns in me.”

“That might have been the multiple times I’ve stabbed you with Epipens, I’m afraid.”

“Not the worst thing you’ve stuck in me.”

There he is.

“Not the best either.”

“Ha-ha. My throat kills.”

“It’s normal. Do you feel sick?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. I’m going to sit you up, very slowly, and you’re going to try to eat. All right?”

“Seems counterintuitive.”

“The salt will help bring your blood pressure back up. I want you to drink some water, too.”

“I’m literally full of salt water from the IV.”

“Hence the reason you’re feeling better than last night, I imagine.” He’s getting back into feeling his oats. Hannibal can’t help but smile at his griping: the night had him partially convinced he’d never hear it again.

Slowly, he eases Will up against the pillows; checks his blood pressure- to much eyerolling and sighing- and is pleased to see it nearly normal.

“Let me go and make you something.”

“Can’t I just eat Saltines like a normal sick person?”

Hannibal ignores him: sometimes it’s the only way.

When he returns with breakfast, Will has his eyes closed, one hand resting on his stomach. His lashes flutter as Hannibal sets a tray onto the bed.

“Smells good,” he murmurs.

“Warm savoury scones with parmesan lace and clarified butter. Normally they’d be better accompanied with ham and a sauce, but I think it’d be wise not to give you anything too rich.”

“Just ten metric tons of baked parmesan is fine.”

Put upon but relishing it, Hannibal forks off a bite of his own breakfast and watches Will eat his with his hands like a child.

“Tastes like crackers,” he mumbles, and then seems to realise that’s entirely the point. A smile touches the corner of his mouth. He eats slowly, but seems to be getting it down okay. Eventually, he sighs.

“Were you okay, last night?”

“What do you mean?” Hannibal sips his coffee to avoid Will’s knowing glance.

“I mean I’d have been losing my mind if that was happening to you. Are you okay?”

After another pause, Hannibal dabs his mouth with his napkin, taking their empty plates and setting them and the tray aside.

“I am now.”

“Good.” Will reaches out to him, careful not to knock his drip, and draws him in for a slow kiss, still tasting of salt like the ocean dwells inside of him. “Thank you. I’m sorry you were scared.”

“It’s all right, Will. Not your fault at all.”  He strokes down his bare chest; touches the pink skin of his sternum. “You still need Aftersun.”

“So put some on me,” Will murmurs, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth up. Enchanted, Hannibal kisses him again.

“Very well.”

 

 


End file.
